iPhone 5s video first impressions

My phone upgrade was due, so I splurged on the iPhone 5s, upgrading from the 4S. While I have enjoyed the 4s' camera as a carry-around, it hasn't been useful for much else. I suspect the same will be true with the 5s, as I am just used to having so much control with a DSLR. Of course, the slow-mo video is a fun touch that may actually find its way into some fun music videos or other projects. Of course, the new GoPro Hero 3+ would be a better choice so maybe not.All of this is basic hand-held footage, put together in iMovie. Simple and quick. The 120fps slow-mo footage from the camera does look nice. Footage from the football game you can really see the image break up at times due to the bright lights against black sky etc. Also, the autofocus is not up to dedicated camera standards.

The footage...


Coming next, a trip to the carnival with a two-year-old and the phone... fun times.

Piaggio Aero Avanti II

She's a beauty, even on a cloudy day.  But in a hammerhead shark kind of way.

A plane apart

One of my first assignments with the Terrell Tribune was covering the annual Flights of Our Fathers fly-in at the Terrell Airport.  It is an event put on by the No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum. The museum preserves a very unique chapter in Terrell, Texas, U.S., WWII and British history.

Any time I had contact with the museum folks, there seemed to be some talk about getting an AT-6 Texan trainer plane of the type used at the school during the war.

And finally, they have one!  Or, rather, they have a whole lot of parts that, soon, will be a great addition to the museum.






It will be fun to help document the reassembly of the plane and to find out a bit of its history.  This one was apparently built in about 1940, and may have seen some service in Canada.  While some parts have been restored, it apparently had a very hard landing and was damaged at the end of its flying life.

To see the plane's progress and support the effort, you can follow along on the museums website, and on Facebook.

Little League again

I got a little bit closer to what I wanted out of little league photos.  This is the second team I've shot in as many weeks, but this time the weather was much more cooperative.  We started at 7 p.m. and the sun had settled behind some hazy clouds.  I need to photoshop that guy out of the background.  The one above is actually a little over-processed for my taste (and I did it :).

This is what the standard photos look like.


And here is the setup..  Softbox as key camera left (didn't have any lefty batters to shoot this time either).  Second light is an ABR 800 shooting through a Lastolite Tri-grip behind and right.

Wednesday Photo Roundup - May 22

Yes, it is about time for another amazing blog post.  Or maybe just a set of links to things I've found interesting over the last few weeks.

For the shot above, I imagined something more like this, but shooting outdoors with gusty wind (and no assistant) made it a bit impossible to use anything other than straight reflectors on the flashes.

Looks like Flickr decided 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," and tried to turn into 500px.com overnight.  I haven't decided if I like it any better, but I do know that doubling the price is not exciting.  Considering that I use Flickr mainly for hosting photos for this blog and some sharing within area groups, it will be hard to justify.  The big selling point is 1 terabyte of storage for your photos.  But it used to be "unlimited" for pro accountholders.  Also, if you have a terabyte of photos on Flickr, you may want to learn to resize images.

Photography on the silver screen?  fStoppers has a top-ten list of photography-related movies.

Human models aren't the only ones to get a full photoshop makeover for magazine covers.  Check out this time-lapse of a cover shoot for an iPhone a few years back.

Here is another great post with photographer Peter Belanger who pulls off those pristine product shots.

Another list.. Photo blogs that cover the business of being a photographer.  Worth a look at all five of them.

PDN's photos and photogs of the year.  Be inspired.

Good thoughts on social media marketing misconceptions. (via @justinwise)

Pet photographers... be inspired.

Another list... Places to shoot before you die.  What is on your photographic "bucket list?"